The Stars are also Fire - [Harvest the Stars 02]

by Poul Anderson

  After a while he sat on the edge of the bed and simply held her hand. "Honest, 'Mond, you poor worrymaker, I'm fine," she insisted. "They tell me I can be back on the job in two weeks, this time with no personal deadline on me." That last was a mistake. Her voice cracked. Immediately, she lowered her lashes and made a purr. "Before then, I'll be fit to screw. I have missed you, darling."

  Starkness remained in him. "We will be careful, always."

  "Oh, yes, oh, yes."

  His look dwelt on her. Silence lengthened.

  "But you wish for children," he said at last.

  "Well—Not unless you do, really, truly."

  "Two have you lost." He had not hitherto spoken of the one adopted away since she told him, that evenwatch when he asked her to marry him. Then he had likewise been still for a while, until he said that it didn't matter, that it was long past, and changed the subject.

  "Do not lie to me," he ordered rather than begged; but how compassionate was his tone. "I know very well you have wept, alone in this bed."

  "That's done with" was all she could find to say.

  "There shall not be a third loss."

  "No." Resolution held firm. She had done much thinking. "We want the Moon more than anything else."

  "Including children?"

  "Yes, if it comes to that."

  "You understand the trouble, no?"

  She nodded and spoke quickly. "Dr. Nguyen drew me the picture. Computer models flipflop when you input changed data. They took those data off me. Examinations, tests, specimens, electrochemical monitoring, my God, I'll be in the scientific journals for the next five years. Sure, I'm the single case, but I seem to have supplied critical information that was missing. The revised opinion is that what happened was inevitable. Contraceps wear off before they would on Earth, with a random time distribution, and no pregnancy will go to term. The lab animals fooled us. For one thing, humans are a lot bigger, which makes fluid management an entirely different engineering problem, at least in a weak grav field. For another thing, the human brain, as complicated as it is, gets tricked into sending the wrong signals to the whole muscular-glandular-nervous female reproductive system. The placenta's chemical defenses break down, allergic reactions build up, the fetus gets expelled but it's dead or dying anyway. Our kind will never breed naturally on Luna."

  There, she'd said it, in a rush but without a quaver. She leaned back on the pillows, abruptly exhausted. "You've heard this?" she whispered.

  "Yes, I was in communication the whole while I drove here." Edmond paused. "They think medications can be developed to compensate and make birth possible."

  "I know," she sighed. "I also know it'd be unpleasant and expensive and condemn the next generation to the same. No."

  She saw and felt how he tautened. "Dagny," he said, word by word, "we can move to Earth . . . before we are too old."

  "You were prepared to do that for Juliana right away, if need be," she answered low.

  "I was. For children born—I do want children for us.

  She shook her head. Calm welled up in her, and with it a new, quiet strength. "Juliana was. She had happened, and we would not kill her nor forsake her. But I saw—You were so kind, so gentle in your gruff way. You never hinted what it would mean to you, tossing out this top-level scientific career of yours and returning to where everything's cut and dried, where you could hope for no more than to drone through a professorship in a mediocre academic department. But I knew, 'Mond. I knew how you'd be taking long walks by yourself so you could shout your blasphemies, and you'd drink hard and your wholesome cynicism would sour into alienation—and you'd stand by me, because you said you would, and you'd never blame the child. 'Mond, I wished I could believe in God, so I could pray we wouldn't have to return. Well, we don't."

  "Bienaimée," he said shakenly.

  The strength rose higher. She sat straight. "It does not follow that we have to be sterile." No, "barren" was the word she wanted, dead end, double death, and to hell with the population-reduction fanatics.

  His bowed head lifted. "Qu'est-ce—what do you mean?"

  "Obvious," she said. "Genetics. A race for which the Moon is the normal environment. I began investigating this damn near as soon as I knew I was pregnant, because—It can be done, 'Mond. The knowledge is there, in genome maps, molecular biology, histology, plain old-fashioned anatomy and physiology. The computers have shown what changes in the DNA are necessary, practically atom by atom. How to do it, that's no different in principle from what's standard in biotech when they want any special kind of new organism. The whole thing's been roughed out, as a scientific exercise and a contingency measure. The details can be refined in a year or two, once the project is go."

  "And you, you would—"

  "Why not? Why the hell not? Take a fertilized ovum, treat it, implant it." Impulse swept her along. "Why, I'll bet we can do the fertilizing in the usual way."

  "No! The risk to you. And . . . the cost, we could not afford this."

  "Nonsense. No more risky than an outing topside. I've studied the matter, I tell you. A, a Lunarian fetus would interact differently. I'd need chemical support, true, but far less than for our kind of child, nothing that'd handicap me in any way. As for cost, why, as long as the Guthries are in charge, Fireball will look beyond the annual profit sheet. In fact, it underwrote the research to date. It'll cheerfully pungle up to produce a next generation that won't need help."

  "You are too crazy sure," he growled.

  "Oh, maybe it won't work out every time. That'll hurt, but I'm willing to take the chance if you are, because we'll be on the way to our kids, our Lunarian children, 'Mond. Our blood living here forever."

  Hers drummed in her veins. She gripped both his hands. For a moment more he hung back. "Dagny, it " has powerful opposition, experimenting with humans. Me, I feel trouble in my conscience. What of the people and politicians on Earth?"

  "If anybody can get approval pushed through, the Guthries can. Darling, say yes, do say yes, and I'll send them a private-coded message tomorrow."

  Anson Guthrie's blood alive on the Moon.

  That he was her grandfather was the last real secret she kept from Edmond. She hoped that now he would let her share it.

  * * * *

  9

  G

  uthrie House seemed older than its centuries, the stone of it almost as if shaped by wind and rain and frost rather than human hands. That mass belonged here, among the firs to right and left and behind, the sweep of lawn and flowerbeds down to the water. Dock, boat, outbuildings fitted as well into the island. Even the spaceship and its shelter were right for this ground.

  But that was all within him, Kenmuir thought. It was because of tradition, sanctity, about which nature knew nothing. And nature itself, the sense of coming home to a living ancientness, was an illusion. Clouds lifted like snowbanks into radiant blue; a breeze blew cool, with savors of woods and salt, above summer—warm soil; waves gleamed and murmured, forest soughed; a few gulls went soaring aloft—in a carefully tended and restricted enclave. It was happenstance that he saw no aircraft pass overhead. When the declining sun had gone behind the ocean, he would spy satellites on their ways across what stars the sky-glow let him see.

  Maybe that was why the spaceship stood not as an intruder. Instead, a guardian of this peace? A totem, a rallying point, at least. She wasn't obtrusive to sight anyway. Occupying a clearing several hundred meters inland, she and her transparent cover would not have shown if the terrain had not risen. As it was, only her bow appeared, a spearhead above treetops and roof.

  Leaving his hired volant on the airstrip and walking toward the house—gravel scrunched beneath his feet —Kenmuir found his gaze and mind dwelling on her. Kestrel, the little Falcon-class that Kyra Davis piloted, she who long and long ago rescued Guthrie from the Avantists and did battle with his doubleganger. Kenmuir himself had once partaken in the annual rite of inspection, cleaning, recharging accumulators, the benediction that
ended, "Be always ready to fly." Beneath the solemnity, a chill had coursed through him and the hair stood up over his whole body. He was very young then. . . . But something of the same stirred anew today. His race did live and die by symbols. And the Lunarians by theirs—But what of the sophotects?

  It occurred to him that he had never looked up the history of this relic. What struggles and chicanery had it taken, not to obtain her, but to win leave to keep her in alert condition? Oh, she was totally obsolete now, but she had not been then; and to this day, license for storing any amount of antimatter on Earth was not otherwise given unless the machines were fully in charge of it and its containment.

  Well, Fireball Enterprises, which had dominated the Solar System, did not dissolve quickly or without many concessions granted its folk. Let them have their memorial. Already in their lifetimes, they were becoming no more than a harmless sodality. After a generation or two, hardly anyone else remembered that Kestrel existed. To the cybercosm, she was an entry in the database.

  Nevertheless, she was. And—Fireball, harmless? That remained to be seen. Kenmuir's pulse and footsteps speeded up.

  A guard waited on the verandah. She was unarmed, ceremonial, a girl serving her apprenticeship before initiation into full consorte status. Matthias liked to have visitors greeted in style. She saw the Fireball uniform he had donned, the same gray as hers, and snapped him a salute, which he returned. (Meanwhile he reflected that in the days of the company there had been no formalities. Such things accreted, like coral crowing on a sunken hull.) "Captain Ian Kenmuir," he identified himself unnecessarily, except for her sake, "with an appointment to meet the Rydberg in private."

  "Aye, señor," she responded. "Por favor, follow me."

  He had not been here in years, but as he entered the vestibule, memory billowed over him. The oak panels, the glass window where Daedalus and Icarus spread their wings—and down a hall, the great dark room with its antique furniture, carpeting and hangings, candelabra and crystal, pictures, books, traditions. In an armchair at the stone fireplace sat Matthias.

  Kenmuir drew to attention before him. "Hola, señor," he greeted as was customary here.

  The old man nodded. "Bienvenido," he said. His voice was a bass rumble. Nor had much else changed since Kenmuir last encountered him. The frame was still massive, paunchy but not withered in the limbs or in the heavy, hook-nosed features; hair was a white cockatoo crest, eyes deep-set and unwavering. A Fireball emblem on the left breast made his plain blue robe uniform enough for him.

  Fleetingly, Kenmuir wondered if Matthias had ever borne more than the single name. Many Earthlings didn't. He knew little about this master of the lodge. Given longevity, a person could serve for such decades that his or her past receded into obscurity.

  "At ease," the Rydberg said. "Be seated if you wish."

  "Thank you—gracias." Kenmuir took a chair facing him.

  A chuckle grated. "Have we had our fill of Americanisms and anachronisms? What would you like for refreshment, Captain?"

  "Uh, well—"

  "As far as I'm concerned, it's not too early for a Scotch and water."

  "Beer, please," Kenmuir made bold to reply.

  Matthias gestured at the guard, who went out. The house had a small human staff as well as its machines, but for her this service was an honor. "You're seldom hereabouts," he remarked.

  "No, sir. I've not been much on Earth, and when I am—" He simply was not a very sociable animal. He'd call on a few friends here and there around the globe, seek out historic sites and daydream, go on days-long tramps through the preserves, that sort of thing. Sometimes he patronized a joyeuse, but not often. It always struck him as rather sad, even when she found pleasure in the specialty by which she prospered. "I ought to participate more in the Trothdom, yes."

  "It's voluntary." Matthias leaned back, bridged his fingers, drooped his lids, and went on ponderously, "Let me see. When you called to ask for an interview, I retrieved what data the outfit has on you, but they're meager and parts may be incorrect. Check me out. Your ancestors include consortes of Fireball since it was a business, but your parents were Earthsiders and not deeply involved in our affairs either."

  Pain twinged in Kenmuir. They should still have been alive. He, their single child, was just fifty-five years of age. But accidents happen also in cybernetic societies. Two volants under manual control, being above an Arctic sports ground where traffic was light, collided—and he out beyond the orbit of Pluto, helping to herd a comet.

  "If I haven't been so active, sir, that's not because I don't value my membership." He was quite sincere.

  "Agreed," Matthias said. "To continue, you won admission to the Academy. Starstruck from birth, eh? And, what's more, gifted for it. You began your career in the Federal Space Service, then shifted to the Venture."

  Since Kenmuir knew that Matthias' own employment had been entirely in the Service, he said half defensively, "Well, sir, everything Earth-based has grown so—uh—"

  "So efficient." Matthias nodded. "Hardly a place left for humans, except on the ground and that mostly makework. No place at all left for initiative. The Service wasn't that far gone in my time. But as I approached retirement, I stopped envying the young."

  Kenmuir's pulse jumped. "The Lunarians, they keep space human."

  "Their kind of human."

  Not to truckle. The Rydberg would despise that. "They do it for our kind too. They need us."

  "Because their style of operations goes against all practicality."

  "Not when it's their nature, sir. And Terran nature, too, for many of us, even these days."

  "Yes, a flicker of the old spirit survives. For a while yet, a while." Matthias brightened a trifle. "The Habitat should revive it. I may live to watch in the flesh a bit of what I've only seen in vivifers and quiviras."

  Kenmuir tensed. "That's what I've come here about."

  Eyes probed him. "I suspected as much."

  What did he actually know?

  The girl returned with a tray, set the drinks on end tables, saluted, and left. "Good liftoff," Matthias toasted. The men brought vessels to lips. The tingle in his mouth gave Kenmuir impetus.

  "You know what the Habitat will do to the Lunarians," he said.

  "Civilize them, gradually," Matthias snorted.

  "Not into a civilization they'll find endurable."

  "So they claim." The tone was rough. "Have they really so little adaptability, or is this a handful of Selenarchs yelling and clawing because they'll lose their privileges?"

  Kenmuir mustered his words.

  "Sir, with respect, I know the Lunarians, every class of Lunarians, about as well as any Earthdweller—any Terran can. When you've been to the ends of the Solar System with somebody, over and over; it gives you an understanding of them." And he had met them at home and in Mars and in their tiny colonies clinging to asteroids that whirled among wintry stars, or dug into ice and rock beneath the majesty of Jupiter or the jewelwork of Saturn.

  "You've come to love them, then?" Matthias asked softly.

  Taken aback, Kenmuir could merely say, "Well, I, I feel for them."

  Matthias lifted a finger. "Mind you, I don't hate them. I agree they're admirable, the way a tiger is.

  And, yes, they are a leaven in this thickening world of ours." He paused. "But we have our own race to think about." With a shrug: "As if what you or I think, what we do, will make the slightest difference."

  Kenmuir knotted a fist. "The Habitat is wrong."

  Matthias raised his brows. "Wrong, to give thousands of humans, and whole generations after them, once again a frontier?"

  Yes, Kenmuir thought, he'd heard it before, the renewed dynamic, humankind looking outward from its games and shadow shows, to the endlessness of the universe. He was pleading the case of native Americans as the whites rolled across them on the way to the Pacific. But what was it Lilisaire had said, about a wave of Lunar colonists being directed into a holding tank? He had spent many a w
atch in space exploring the past of Earth. After the white Americans filled their new land, vested interests and demagogues did not take long to make citizens into subjects.

  "Sir," he persisted, "I'm an example of what Lunarian freedom can mean to Terrans. If we're ever to go to the stars—" where download Guthrie was, but how barely! "—it will have to be together with them."

  "Maybe. Speak your piece."

  "They deserve a chance, the same as we do."